Building on the city homestead.

Our city homestead is 1/4th of an acre.  In the past we have had a garden...

A chicken coop...

The Coop with Roosters

A fire pit...

The Fire Pit or Beginnings of the Rock Garden

A small berry plot...

Raspberries!

And one monster of a two story play house...

Climbing

In order to expand our self sufficiency and decrease our food expenditures, we have decided to tackle some major changes in our backyard. 

When we returned from vacation, our compost heap had sprouted squash.  The first change was having do destroy the squash plants since they would never be able to mature in time.  I chopped the vines up and placed them at the bottom of one of the rock gardens to decompose.

Squash Blossom

The next task is to build some raised beds.  Our current garden leaves little room for anything but tomatoes and peppers.  It makes it difficult to rotate crops for garden health and vitality.  We have some blight issues and also some nutritional deficiencies that not even the best of compost can help (we try to keep it simple and avoid fertilizers.)

Compost Filled Rock Gardens

In the blazing summer heat, I used the little red wagon (much better for my purposes than a wheelbarrow) to haul rocks.  Our home's previous owners left massive amounts of rock, brick, and brush around the parameter of the yard.  The main use of the rocks and bricks will be creating new raised beds.  We are going to fill the rock beds, once finished, with compost, chicken guano, and composted manure (must get delivered eek.) It will then support the expanded garden needs that our growing family has.

Little Red Wagon

Once this project is done, the old garden will turn into a perennial garden of herbs and flowers.  The hill below the current garden will turn into the new berry patch, and the old berry patch will turn into one of the dwarf tree orchards.

Herbs

The End of the Rhubarb